


Swaddling

by Owlship



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Dad max, Fluff, Gen, Max Comes Back, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-14 13:43:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14770721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owlship/pseuds/Owlship
Summary: In which Max finds a baby and definitely doesn't decide to keep it. Nope.





	Swaddling

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [on tumblr](http://v8roadworrier.tumblr.com/post/138719701171/so-i-guess-this-depends-on-if-youre-still-taking)!

The wreck is fresh enough that it's still smoking, which is unusual. Max eases off the gas and scans his eyes over the horizon, looking for whoever took the car down. He doesn't really want to have to fight off some gang just to get a few drops of guzz, but there's no telling if the rig has anything _worth_ fighting over in it from where he's standing.

There's no movement so he drives closer, kills the engine and gets out to walk around, hand ready to draw his gun. Under the flipped-over bonnet there's a mangled motorcycle, the rider's blood soaking into the dusty earth. Well. Right unlucky for the would-be-raider, but good for a scav like him.

"Max?"

He jerks his head up in alarm- he hasn't heard Glory in a long time, and her voice now has him on edge. Always means something, she does.

"Is that you?"

Max shakes his head to try and stop the noise, leaves the bike to investigate the car proper. Two bodies in the front- well, mostly in the front. Bloody, unmoving, one missing most of its head. Too fresh for flies to have really found them yet, just old enough for the blood to have stopped dripping.

He dismisses them to start pulling stuff from the back of the car, tossing most of it away as useless. Might be something shine to take, but he wasn't hoping for much more than what guzz they had in their tank.

At first he thinks it's another ghost. Just some echo lodged in his brain of a time so long ago he can't remember any of it clearly. But the crying only gets louder, shrill and insistent, and when his reaching hands land not on another bag of loot but something that _squirms_ -

Max jerks away. Blinks a few times, shakes his head. The crying's still going. He gets down on his stomach to really see through the busted window and yep. Among the debris there's a baby wailing its head off.

He glances at the front seats, already knowing that the bodies there are going to still be dead. Glances back at the kid.

Looks young, but old enough that it won't die for missing its mother. Doesn't need to know its age to know that it _will_ die if he ignores it, though. Best case, another scav happens along, or the gang that sent the motorcyclist catches up, decide to take pity. Worst case… well, the wastelands are big and lonely, and one small wreck isn't going to attract much attention.

Max blinks and sees a tiny body shriveled dry under the sun, bloated with rot, gnawed on with blunt teeth. He growls to himself and reaches out to yank the kid out of the rags it's tangled up in.

"Hush," he tells it once it's in his arms, which does absolutely nothing to soothe it. If anything, the sprog looks at his face and starts crying louder, face scrunched up and angry reddish. "Shh," he tries, "Y're fine." There's no blood on it, and none of the limbs- exactly the right number, and isn't that a rarity these days- feel broken either.

It's probably not as heavy as it should be, considering. Max settles the squirming baby more securely and dangles a finger in front of its face. The kid doesn't stop crying, but its eyes do track the movement passably well. So maybe no brain damage from the tumble, either.

"Lucky," he tells the kid. The baby doesn't seem to agree.

Max stands up again and scans over the area, but it's still as empty as it had been. He can't leave the baby here, that's obvious, but that means finding someone to take it. Kid's not old enough to be useful yet, and if it's not anyone's family… He shivers despite the baking sun, tucks the sprog a little closer to his chest.

The kid keeps crying for a long while, until after he's stripped as much useful stuff from the wreck as he could. He finds a ratty-but-mended stuffed animal of some kind and he shoves it at the baby, who grips it tight and buries its face into its worn fur. Muffles the noise a bit, at least.

He hadn't been planning to go back, is the thing. The girls were handling things well, and Furiosa had long since recovered, and the Dag's little sprout was starting to boss them all around, and things would be better if he stopped circling like a bad omen. But he can't think of anyplace that would take in a babe without him having to worry about their motives, and there's water enough to spare for another small mouth.

Max doesn't have to check his map to know he'll be heading north, but he does anyway. Still marked out with that grinning skull, and seeing it makes him scratch at the matching scar on the back of his neck. Two, three days, he thinks. Got plenty of guzz, but there wasn't much tucker in the wreck, and he's not sure the kid can handle the type of food he keeps on hand.

They should have fresh things, babies should. Even jarred wasn't as good; he remembers burning through a blender's motor fixing meals for-

Max twitches, shakes his head violently. Glares at the baby he's haphazardly strapped into what used to be a passenger seat.

The kid gnaws on what might be an ear from its stuffed toy, unconcerned.

It takes five days. Max can't drive as fast, can't take the sort of risks he normally would without thinking. He has to stop almost constantly to change wet nappies- he understands why there were so goddamn many rags in that wreck and bitterly misses canisters of soft wipes- and shove food and water into the brat's mouth. Has to spend time letting him sleep at night, too, so much more than he usually wastes. Max can't bring himself to sleep at all, not knowing that an unlucky ambush would be so much worse than usual, instead curls himself up around the small body to keep the heat in against the chill of night and grips his shotgun tight, waiting.

After the first day the kid stops wailing at the sight of him (cutting away his beard so there was actually a face to see might have helped), and instead starts babbling almost constantly. There aren't many actual words in there, when he's not calling out for "Mama" and "Dada", but Max finds himself sing-songing the words of a dozen half-forgotten little songs over the rumble of the engine and the kid picks up on the tunes, if not the words.

The second day he learns that the toy's name is apparently "Bear" despite resembling more of an anemic cow, and that the kid can only _sometimes_ feed himself.

The third day, the baby seems to realize that his mom isn't coming and cries for hours, loud and heart-wrenching, seems inconsolable until Max tucks him against his chest to drive one-handedly, the other busy circling and patting his tiny back.

The fourth he seems more subdued, almost enough to have him worried, but still eats well and babbles along as Max sings whatever songs come to mind.

On the fifth day the spires of the Citadel loom up on the horizon, his car familiar enough that the patrol doesn't even bother intercepting him, just waves him up to the lift immediately.

"Hush," he tells the sprog, even though he's gnawing quietly on a chunk of dried fruit, unbothered by the swaying of the lift as it raises them up. Some not-so-wretched people on the platform look in through his windows curiously until Max revs the engine as warning, even though it's not like he could drive off the platform.

Furiosa's waiting for him in the garage when the platform jolts to a stop, Capable besides her, both of them looking a little smug to see him back.

Max waits for the people to clear out before pulling his car into one of the open slots, already planning to move it somewhere safer when he gets a moment. First, though…

"What's that you've got, fool?" Furiosa asks as he works to get the strapping undone rather than immediately step out to greet them. It's not the first time he's brought back something for them- for the green- but usually it's nothing that can't wait.

The kid's warm and heavy in his arms when Max finally wrestles him out of the seat, bear dangling precariously from his grasp.

"Oh," Capable says in surprise when he stands so they can see, "Is that a baby?"

"Max?" Furiosa asks, looking like she might be torn between stepping forward to greet him like usual and stepping away from the kid.

"Mhm," Max says, "Found him. Car wreck."

"His family didn't make it?" Capable asks even as she walks closer to see the kid, goofy smile growing on her face when he focuses on her. She waggles her fingers and the baby stares, but not, he thinks, in a way that heralds more tears to come.

Max shakes his head in answer.

"It's good you brought him to us then," Capable says, "There's plenty of people who'd be willing to take in a baby, here." She reaches out her hands like she wants to hold the kid and instead of putting him into her arms, Max shifts so he's held a little closer to his own chest.

Then he blinks, because he hadn't meant to do that.

"Can I hold him?" Capable asks, looking at him curiously.

"Course," Max replies, hands the kid over to her. Shifts awkwardly now that his hands are free. He could probably catch some sleep while he's here, at last.

Unfortunately the baby doesn't take to being held by Capable, even though it's clear she knows how to hold kids. He looks up at her and his face scrunches, almost immediately breaking out into tears.

Max takes him back before she can do anything to try and soothe the kid, not because he thinks she couldn't but- he rubs a hand across the sprog's back, makes sure his toy is tucked up near his face to hide behind. "Hush," he tells him softly, "shh."

The kid hiccups a bit but the tears weren't the type meant to last, already drying up as he's held by someone semi-familiar again.

"Okay," Capable says after a minute, looking surprised again.

Max shifts uncomfortably. "He's not used to strangers," he says in defense, and doesn't think about the fact that he definitely should qualify for that title himself, having known the baby for less than a week.

"You look ready to fall over," Furiosa says, changing the subject before the awkward silence stretches on too long, "And I'm guessing the kid could use a nap, too."

Max shrugs, but it _is_ true that he hasn't slept more than a few unwilling minutes since picking up the kid. He reluctantly ducks his head in agreement and hums when she continues to stare him down, waiting for a real answer.

"Come on then," Furiosa says, gesturing for him to follow as she starts walking out of the garage.

He's surprised when she doesn't lead him to a guest room- Max has stayed in her room a few times before, but there is a big difference between sharing a mattress to keep the nightmares at bay and sharing space with a loud, smelly baby.

"Does he need anything?" she asks as Max takes a set on the edge of the bed, the kid no longer seeming anywhere close to tears but looking around eagerly as he chews on his bear's ear.

"Nappies," Max replies. "He already ate earlier."

"I'll find some rags," Furiosa says. "He have a name yet?"

"Hn?" Of course the kid doesn't have a name- well, presumably not one that anyone but his dead parents knew, anyway.

"Max, you looked ready to take Capable's hands off when she only mentioned finding the kid a family," she says with an amused shake of her head, "You didn't even notice you were talking to him on the way over, did you?"

Max squints at her in confusion. He hadn't- but he _had_ , he realizes with something like mortification. He'd kept up the stream of patter that had started in the car that first day, distracting the kid by pointing out things as they passed. It's good to build vocabulary, connections in the brain.

He looks down at the baby in his arms, now babbling quietly as he squirms just a little, not unhappily but like he regrets being unable to walk to investigate on his own.

"I'm not," Max says, swallows heavily because he can't do this again, can't get attached to something that's only going to be hurt.

"No one's saying you have to keep him," Furiosa says, reaching out with her flesh hand to ruffle over the kid's crop of downy hair. "But you also don't _have_ to give him up, either."

She moves her hand up to comb through Max's hair next, roughly chopped the same time he hacked down the beard. "Now get some rest, fool. I'll keep watch."


End file.
